Only weeks ago, the political world was buzzing about a "team of rivals." America was told that finally, after years of yes men running the government, we were getting a president who would follow Abraham Lincolns lead, fill his administration with varying viewpoints, and glean empirically sound policy from the clash of ideas. Little did we know that "team of rivals" was what George Orwell calls "newspeak": an empty slogan "claiming that black is white, in contradiction of the plain facts."

Obama's national security team, for instance, includes not a single Iraq war opponent. The president has not only retained George W. Bush's defense secretary, Robert Gates, but also 150 other Bush Pentagon appointees. The only "rivalry" is between those who back increasing the already bloated defense budget by an absurd amount and those who aim to boost it by a ludicrous amount.

Of course, that lockstep uniformity pales in comparison to the White House's economic team -- a squad of corporate lackeys disguised as public servants.

At the top is Lawrence Summers, the director of Obama's National Economic Council. As Bill Clinton's treasury secretary in the late 1990s, Summers worked with his deputy, Tim Geithner (now Obama's treasury secretary), and Clinton aide Rahm Emanuel (now Obama's chief of staff) to champion job-killing trade deals and deregulation that Obama Commerce Secretary Judd Gregg helped shepherd through Congress as a Republican senator. Now, this pinstriped band of brothers is proposing a "cash for trash" scheme that would force the public to guarantee the financial industry's bad loans. It's another ploy "to hand taxpayer dollars to the banks through a variety of complex mechanisms," says economist Dean Baker -- and noticeably absent is anything even resembling a "rival" voice inside the White House.

That's not an oversight. From former federal officials like Robert Reich and Brooksley Born, to Nobel Prize-winning economists like Joseph Stiglitz and Paul Krugman, to business leaders like Leo Hindery, there's no shortage of qualified experts who have challenged market fundamentalism. But they have been barred from an administration focused on ideological purity.

In Hindery's case, the blacklisting was explicit. Despite this venture capitalist establishing a well-respected think tank and serving as a top economic advisor to Obama's campaign, the Politico reports that "Obama's aides appear never to have taken his bid (for an administration post) seriously." Why? Because he "set himself up in opposition" to Wall Street's agenda.

The anecdote highlights how, regardless of election hoopla, Washington is the same one-party town it always has been -- controlled not by Democrats or Republicans, but by Kleptocrats (i.e., thieves). Their ties to money make them the undead zombies in the slash-and-burn horror flick that is American politics: No matter how many times their discredited theologies are stabbed, torched and shot down by verifiable failure, their careers cannot be killed. Somehow, these political immortals are allowed to mindlessly lunge forward, never answering to rivals -- even if that rival is the president himself.

Remember, while Obama said he wants to slash "billions of dollars in wasteful spending" at the Pentagon, his national security team is demanding a $40 billion increase in defense spending (evidently, the "ludicrous" faction got its way). Obama also said he wants to crack down on the financial industry, strengthen laws encouraging the government to purchase American goods, and transform trade policy. Yet, his economic team is not just promising to support more bank bailouts, but also to weaken "Buy America" statutes and make sure new legislation "doesn't signal a change in our overall stance on trade," according to the presidents spokesman.

Indeed, if an authentic rivalry was going to erupt, it would have been between Obama's promises and his team of zombies. Unfortunately, the latter seems to have won before the competition even started.

A few months ago I posted a Sirota article from The Nation where he recognized that FDR's New Deal and its successors had destroyed the vibrant civil society that had made this country different. (Read Alexis de Toqueville's 1836 classic, Democracy in America, to see what I'm talking about.)

Sirota now seems to be moving into the territory I'd describe as Honest Liberal. I have a feeling that in a year or so, he's going to wake up and realize, with horror, that he's becoming a conservative.

6
posted on 02/06/2009 6:26:20 PM PST
by Publius
(The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other peoples money.)

Well Lincoln presided over a war between the state will phony do the same because right now he is royally screwing many Americans, it is not north v south but left v right.

Unless those liberals and left wing loons all move to their stronghold of the north east and all conservatives move to our stronghold of the south, Midwest and AK

Infact I wouldn’t lose sleep over it as let the liberal commies have their utopia and I’ll watch down here laughing at how they are screwing their new utopia up.
Just so long we have a fence built between us and them and all left wing loons get the hell out with the homo’s and illegals and of course not forgetting their lets talk to child molesters

7
posted on 02/06/2009 6:26:55 PM PST
by manc
(Marriage is between a man and a woman no sick MA,CT sham marriage end racism end affirmative action)

I don't believe that the author is an actual liberal. He may think he is; he may tell all his friends that he is; he may spew liberal rhetoric. But he appears incapable of professing two contradictory ideas at the same time... it alarms him that Obama is "buying American" while supporting free trade.

Obama will combine the failures of FDR and Carter in one administration;I sincerely HOPE the people vote foe CHANGE in the 2010 elections and ,even before then,that the Republicans and conservative Democrats grow spines and fight this megalomaniac bent on destroying our nation.

I think your characterization will prove to have changed when every zerObot starts to feel the pain. I no longer think very many are cooing over how good it feels to have elected zerO. There is widespread fear and anxiety about basic lifestyle.

No job except deadening government jobs for the loyal and protected classes.

Inadequate donations to their causes and NGOs. Favoritism between factions for government grants.

The younger generation is very interconnected, thanks to technology. They know people everywhere, know the economic conditions, the outrages, the betrayals. Only a few can hope to benefit in a totalitarian regime. The rest are going to begin to seethe.

I predict that the upper income liberals who figured zerO and the donks couldn't upset their comfy apple cart will be the first defectors. Middle income folks of all ideologies and colors are going to get very nervous about terrorists being set free, tried for other crimes or incarcerated in their nearby prisons, which see escapes on a regular basis. The lower income classes are going to get nothing but crumbs, as usual, and they will resent it. The perpetually angry will either be bought off or become the target of envy and jealousy from the not-so-fortunate, but just as angry, cadres.

There's going to be plenty of fighting. Only 1/3 fought against tyranny, back in the founders' day.

As for us, a poster last night or today recommended what amounts to *monkey-wrenching* the regime. Increase your taxable deductions. Slow spending for all but necessities. Barter for whatever you can. Take whatever you are eligible for that is being passed out and still don't vote for them. Go on virtual or actual strike, depending on your circumstances. If you are in a position to cost the regime time and money without becoming a target, do so. Everyone can think of several ways to resist.

If the regime is forced to continually badger and pressure folks from every demographic and every ideology, they are going to be run ragged just doing CYA and PR while herding cats. Nothing ever works in a communist society, anyway.

Everyone is too smart to think they could stage a physical battle and become anything but tank tread material ala Tiananmen Square.

Oh no, Sirota is a liberal in good standing. He posts over at Daily Kos and everything, although recently, the Kommies flamed him terribly for something (I didn’t read exactly what, I just saw the flame war when I searched comments).

Stuff like this Sirota article is valuable ammunition when you’re talking to liberals (if you must). You can quote the Cato Institute until you’re blue in the face, and they’ll just tune it out, but if you say, “Well, David Sirota says...” you get their attention.

I turned a BUNCH of liberals against the Shamnesty bill by pointing out the objections raised by the Southern Poverty Law Center. Whatever you or I might think of the positions of the SPLC, they are super popular with liberals. So, by citing their positions, I was able to convince these liberals to join in the opposition to the Shamnesty bill.

I’ve already mailed a few of them the Sirota column, along with the numbers for their Senators.

If you don’t have an eye for what’s happening then indeed you wouldn’t be really ready to fight just yet.

If you are truly a reformed liberal then you see what I see: Americans are losing their country and their freedom and sleepwalking through the destruction.

The left has entropy (chaos) on their side. They have only to destroy—not to build. Their ideal “government” creates nothing—it merely steals from one human and delivers the bloody loot to another. A recipe for death as proved by the graves of millions of innocents that perished at the only possible end of that “good-hearted” idealogy.

The left claims to hate slavery and powerful rich people but seems to have a real taste for huge, opressive governments chock full of powerful rich politicians.

I’ll take the greedy CEO over the tax-greedy politician with an army and a gun to my head any day.

The “rich liberals” you mentioned are but pawns. These “useful idiots” will indeed be the first to experience great disillusionment and to defect. They will also be among the first strolled-out into an open field somewhere just outside of town by the real-deal left, if you get my meaning.

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